Its hard to tell what happened at Hanoi this turn just by looking at the stats, so I'll explain the situation. There were 2 armies outside Hanoi. The Southern Army moved up from Saigon, and conducted the bombardments of Hanoi in the earlier turns. The second army, which was about the same size, was the one which originally unsuccessfully attacked Hanoi earlier in the game from China. The China Army halted at the Red River, one hex east of Hanoi. When I decided this turn to begin the ground attack, I set the Southern Army for deliberate attack, and they are the ones conducting the combat in the first 2 days of this turn. The China Army moved across the Red River on the third day, leading to an immediate shock attack with double the number of troops. The combined armies are taking very heavy casualties, but the so are the French, and the Japanese now have a definate numerical advantage.

So what happened? Had this battle taken place during the day, I have a feeling the 3 BCs would have torn my ships apart. But because were were fighting at night, we were at closer range, so the belt armor, where the Japanese were superior became important. Also my larger number of escorts were able to fire torpedoes, 3 of which tore into BC Constitution. Had the battle been during the day, the US could have used its superior range and firepower. The longer range would have resulted in more strikes to the deck armor, which as you can see above would have been bad for the Japanese ships, and nullified the Japanese torpedo advantage. I considered myself lucky to have just lost one BB in this engagement. The loss of BC Constitution was a result of 3 unlucky torpedo hits early in the engagement.

The Japanese ships were headed for port, and blundered into the armored cruisers. Normally the BBs should have been more then a match for the US CAs, but the Japanese ships faraed badly due to their being nearly out of ammunition, and damaged from the previous encounter with the BCs. The 6 extra US DDs didn't help things either, as that torpedo hit doomed BB Asahi. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Day Time Surface Combat at 73,44

In Washington, Congressional critics of both parties have launched a joint investigation into the appalling losses in Capital ships at the hands of a "Junior Power" like Japan. Pressure is building on the Coolidge Administration to bring in some new War Department Managers, or find a honorable way to exit this costly endeavor.

In London, Conservative Tabloids are launching numerous editorial diatribes concerning the wisdom of the Parliament in appointing the Conservative Churchill as head of the coalition government. "Obviously, Churchill's blunt words alone have forced our former Japanese Allies to reconsider their reckless Asian campaign in it's tracks....... far from our vital Crown Colonies. "The PM is worth 10 Division of colonial troops ...." said one editorial

OK, so here's what happened. The US Fleet appeared out of nowhere and started landing massive numbers of troops on the Bonin Group, achieving total surprise. It just so happens that the Bonin Group was the "secret lair" of my CV TF. So after fighting off some AMCs, the CVs moved 60 miles offshore and started launching airstrikes against the invaders. Needless to say, the aircraft weren't suffering for lack of targets. This is the 3rd time my CVs have been caught in a surface action!

Oh, by the way, in the middle of all this insanity the last French base on mainland Indochina fell! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ground combat at Bonin

What a crazy, deadly naval battle! As stated last turn, I was caught completely off guard by the Bonin invasion. All I had in the area were a bunch of AMCs and a CV force. The only "real" warships were my CV group and both of us had subs in the area. So the CVs launched airstrike after airstrike while the AMCs pounded away at each other. Some screenshots -